As Far as You Can Go (22 page)

Diane came down the stairs with a small box of red leather with an elaborate clasp.

“Here it is, Grandma,” she said. She didn’t look at Harold.

“Here it is,” repeated the old woman. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp, then opened the box, with a sort of reluctant tenderness, Harold thought. For a wild second he imagined that the miniature might be missing, so portentous had the atmosphere become.

Mrs Washburn took out several rings, some clips, some earrings, laying them on the sofa beside her. Then came a rope of pearls, very like the one she always wore.

“I’ve always been fond of pearls,” she said. Then, “You shall have all of this, Diane.”

Diane was staring out of the window and did not turn round.

“Here you are, Mr Barlow,” said Mrs Washburn. She held a chain from which there hung a locket. She snapped it open brusquely and handed it to him without looking at the portrait inside. “You may gaze your fill of it.”

It was indeed the Dangerfield miniature, exquisitely done. A young man with auburn hair was leaning against a tree which had the date carved in the bark, 1599. He seemed negligent, affected, clearly aware of his own good looks. There was a bright blue background, as in old Dutch
pictures
, against which his hair seemed flamboyantly red, though
a closer look showed it to be a true auburn, with dark lights in it. One hand held a book from which he appeared to be looking up, as though surprised by the presence of the artist; the other rested on his hip. He wore a loose collar, and a white shirt, with white hose and yellow velvet pantaloons, if those things were pantaloons. He was arrogantly sexual, Harold thought, assured, at ease, with a grave mouth that seemed to invite the viewer to trade epigrams or kisses with him. He was really very handsome. One could see why Queen Elizabeth was attracted. Also, perhaps, why she wasn’t sorry to see his head roll. He didn’t look the sort of man who would have been easy around the house, let alone around a palace. His pointed shoes looked as though they were itching to kick a servant up the bottom. Yet he looked dissatisfied, too. In fact, there was something restless about him which reminded Harold of Eddie Jackson.

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

“And is it the one you’re after?”

“Yes, Mrs Washburn.”

“Well,” she said, “now you’ve seen it.” She was watching him very closely, he felt, but he didn’t hand it back at once.

“Come and look at it, Diane,” he said.

“I don’t want to see it,” she said.

“Now, child, why ever not?” said Mrs Washburn. “You’ve seen it before. Don’t you like it?”

“Not any more,” said Diane. “Harold, we ought to be going. I’ve put your supper on for you, Grandma, you only have to take it out of the oven.”

Harold gave the miniature back to Mrs Washburn and said, “I’m most grateful to you, Mrs Washburn. I can see exactly why you don’t want to part with it. I wouldn’t myself.”

“My husband gave me that,” she said. “He was no good, my second husband. But he bought me that. There’s a lot of things in this life, son, that you don’t want to part with.”
She looked at the miniature. “But you part with them all in the end.”

He wondered if there was a deliberate double meaning in her words. He was about to speak, but thought better of it.

“Hadn’t we better get moving, Harold?” said Diane.

“I’m really very grateful,” said Harold.

Mrs Washburn put all the jewels and the miniature back in the box and snapped the lid. Hearing the snap, Harold felt a sudden constriction in his throat, as though he had had a plate of food snatched from in front of him. His mouth was full of saliva. He realized suddenly and for the first time that he wanted the miniature for his own reasons, and the hell with Mr Dangerfield. To have held it in his hand and to have surrendered it again seemed madness. It was almost like voluntarily submitting to castration.

He pulled himself together and said, “Yes, we ought to be going. Good night, Mrs Washburn.”

“It’s hardly evening yet, son,” she said, with mild surprise. “Now you kids go off and enjoy yourselves. Off with you, now.” Her hands lay relaxed over the jewel-box.

She is my enemy, thought Harold.

As they got into the car Diane said, “Well, I hope you’re satisfied now.”

“No,” said Harold, “I’m just beginning to get an appetite, as a matter of fact.”

“Look, Harold——” she started.

“You listen to me, Diane.” She was no longer a girl to daydream about, sitting beside him, her face pale and her eyes hostile, the pupils like sharp pinpricks. She was the girl he wanted, and wanted very badly. “Let’s not pretend
anything
any more, shall we? There are just two things I want in California, and I want them badly enough to know I’m going to get them. One’s that damned picture. And the other is you.”

“What I like about you is you’re so
romantic,
”
she said.

“Listen to me, Diane. What have you got against me? I want you. And I’ll show you that I’m serious enough not to give a damn about your grandmother. She may have
frightened
off the other boys. She may have frightened
you.
But she doesn’t frighten me.”

He leaned across the car and seized her shoulders roughly and kissed her very hard. She was caught off balance, and didn’t have time to resist, at first. But then he felt the
invisible
polythene bag again, and the pleasure went out of the kissing. He felt a surge of rage and despair, and pulling back he slapped her face, not hard, but enough to sting.

“What in hell’s got into you?” she said, stunned.

“I’m sick of this politeness, this distance, between us. Why don’t you let go? If you don’t like me, say so. But there’s always something you hold back. Why? And why do you side always with your grandmother?”

“Why?” she said, blankly. “Why?”

He started the car and began to drive fast down the twisting road of the canyon.

“Yes, why? Do you think I’m hanging around you just to soften up your grandmother? Do you think——”

“Harold, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said, slamming on the brakes as they came to a stop sign. “I love you, Diane, that’s what I’m talking about.”

He was still angry, still hungry. He turned to her and saw tears in her eyes, tears and fright. The tiny pupils seemed hypnotized.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, more gently.

She began to cry.

“You don’t have to hit me,” she said, between quiet animal sobs. “You don’t have to act rough, Harold.”

“Well, why do you always hold back?”

“I don’t know. How would I know? I didn’t know I did hold back, for Christ’s sake.”

“And why do you always side with your grandmother?”

“Grandma,” she said. She blew her nose. “Grandma brought me up. You don’t have to love the members of your family to feel tied to them. You can hate them, and they’re still yours, you’re still bound to them. And when you feel they’re threatened, you—I don’t know.”

“I know exactly. You run to them, as you run to your grandmother, and you feel safer because you think you’re making her safer. It’s not her that you’re trying to protect, it’s yourself. You’re frightened to let go.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, stop being frightened. I’m not going to hurt you. I love you, even if I have to slap your face to make you realize it.”

“You needn’t do it again,” she said. “I got the point.”

He stopped the car beside the road.

“Now, come on,” he said. “Let’s try it again, shall we?”

But she pushed him away.

“You’d better listen yourself,” she said. “You may love me. I don’t love you. And if you’re going to be brutal about it, I’m for Grandma against you.”

“Why?”

“Because Grandma is the only person I have in the world. Mom doesn’t care about me, Pop doesn’t care, Uncle Henry doesn’t care. But Grandma cares. And I care for her, really care, whether it’s love or hate or plain living together for twenty years.”

“How do you know you don’t love me?” said Harold. “You spend so much time locked up inside yourself, you never get out to see what real life is like. Up there at the end of the canyon, you’re living like a lady hermit.”

His anger was gone. He spoke gently. “You know that’s true, Diane. Why not let yourself go a little? Why not forget about Grandma for a couple of hours, and live for yourself for a change?”

“What makes you think I want to?” she said in a tired voice. “What makes you think I’m not happy as I am, Harold?”

“Diane, I’m in love with you.”

“That’s no answer,” she said. “That’s just corn.”

“Well, darling, why are you always so restless? Why did you tell me, the first time we ever met, that you wanted to go out and punch a cop in the face? Of course you want to get out of your hermit cell.”

“O.K.,” she said, mumbling slightly, “O.K., O.K.”

“Diane——”

But she was crying again, the tears streaming down her face, and she shook her head, and motioned him to ignore her, to drive on. He kissed her very gently, sliding across the front seat of the car till he was free of the wheel. She cried silently, her body stiff beneath his hands. He murmured to her, stroking her face, her hair, her shoulders, saying nothing, trying to soothe her.

Gradually she relaxed, became soft and supple, and as his lips moved to hers, she ceased to withhold, he felt her giving, yielding, abandoning the barricade.

When he moved from her, at last, she said, “O.K., Harold, O.K., O.K.” Her eyes were dry, rather feverish, her face flushed, her hair disarranged.

“Let’s drive on now, shall we?” she said.

“I’m sorry I hit you. I don’t know why, but I suddenly saw everything clearly for the first time. It was when your grandmother snapped the lid of her jewel-box. It was like an insult, the way that snap sounded. And I knew a whole lot of things—that I wanted you, that I did love you, that I wasn’t fooling myself. And that I wanted the miniature, too, not for Dangerfield, or for England, but for myself.”

“That sounds kind of corny, too, honey,” said Diane. She was tidying her hair. “I feel kind of shaky.”

“I feel strong,” said Harold.

“Let’s go, then,” she said. “Let’s see what Uncle Henry has to offer us.”

“Diane, will you marry me?”

She smiled at him, and at last the pupils of her eyes seemed to be larger, softer. “Gee, I don’t know,” she said. “We don’t have to decide anything like that right away, do we?”

“All right,” said Harold. He was absolutely confident that she would marry him. “But don’t forget, will you? I love you. And
I
proposed. I want that to be clear to the
children
.”

He slid back to the driving-seat, and she snuggled against him. He felt like a hero, indeed, with the warmth of her body pressing against his, the weight of her body leaning trustfully against him. But there was still a dragon to be killed.

They began to talk quietly about themselves.

Diane said, “You know, it’s a funny thing, but you’re right, I always did feel a kind of—I don’t know, a kind of hopelessness whenever a boy kissed me. I never enjoyed it like I was supposed to. I always felt kind of baffled.”

Harold told her about Helen, about the despair he always felt about her. It was the first time he had ever told anyone about his bafflement with her. It seemed strange to be telling the girl he loved about the girl he’d slept with, but in their new harmony it was natural, and right, and good; and she listened as though he was talking about another person and another girl, and all she said when he stopped was, “I’m sorry for her, Harold. Gee, I’m really sorry for her.”

They were coming to Harold’s hotel, and he said, “Damn your Uncle Henry and Eddie Jackson. I should have liked to spend the whole evening just with you, darling.”

“Never mind. There’ll be others.”

They smiled at each other.

“Hi,” said Eddie, as Harold stopped next to him. He was standing by the gate of the parking lot, and he wore dark glasses as usual, only this time, instead of jeans, it was a pair
of very tight white pants and a peacock-blue sweat-shirt, neither very clean. He had a deep tan, and his teeth shone brilliantly white when he gave his straight smile. He didn’t look like the man in the miniature after all, Harold decided, but he had the same casual arrogance and sexuality. It was a type that never died out.

He got in next to Diane, and this allowed her to squeeze even more close to Harold. Her arm was round his shoulder, and her other hand lay gently on his thigh. Enjoying the closeness, the private aura that seemed to enclose them, he thought of what Mrs Washburn had said. She was right: when you were young you thought you were the only person in the world who had any feelings, and that your feelings were the most important single fact about the universe. Where Mrs Washburn went off the track was to suppose that knowing you were slightly ridiculous and very arrogant made you feel any shame. Not shame, not at all: pride. It was good to have someone else in the car beside you to see how happy you were, and to envy you.

“How’s things?” said Eddie, after introductions.

“I love things,” said Harold.

“You mean that?” said Eddie.

“I meant they were fine, thanks.”

“It depends how you look at them,” said Diane. “If you’re happy, things look O.K. If you’re mad at the world, they look ugly and terrible.”

“Then I guess I’m mad at the world,” said Eddie. “I hate things. I hate people, too. But things most of all. You can’t do anything to a thing. Did you ever think of that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well,” said Eddie. He frowned and prepared for a speech. “It’s like this. You can hurt people, you can get your own back at them, you can sneer at them and make them feel miserable, you can make them cry, you can get some kind of reaction out of them, right? But you can’t do any of that
to a thing. You can’t make a thing cry, right? You can kick it, but you’ll only hurt yourself. You can tire yourself out raging against a thing. But your mind wants some kind of response.”

Diane started to protest, but Eddie silenced her with a quick irritated gesture.